I just received an e-mail from Henny Kupferstein that was an eye opener. I knew that she works with autistic children via music, often using services like Skype. I had no idea, however, that she too is autistic!

As far as I know, I’ve never met anyone who is autistic or at least interacted with the person extensively. So I’ve been wondering what it is like to be autistic and I’ve watched videos that weren’t very enlightening to me, other than to make me realize that autistic people deal with the world in a different way, and find ways to deal with the expectations of mainstream people.

I’d previously gotten the impression, from Temple Grandin’s TED Talk, that autistic people have different abilities, special abilities.

In this video, Henny explains in detail how the visual/mathematical world works for her and that it is a thing of great beauty.

Now I understand it a lot better!

They don’t have the time and resources to solve crimes against individuals, unless those individuals have been killed, but they do still have the time and resources to send two or three cars to follow me and hunt me through the city to play PacMan.

They love playing PacMan with migrants and with women.

They first did this to me in 2009. February it was.

Of course, when you call them out on it, they always say that they don’t have the time and resources for that kind of crap.

So on my way back, I walked up to the central police station in Portsmouth, and addressed its CCTV camera:

You. Need. To. Observe. The. Law.

The law!

That’s the kind of police we have in Britain – barbaric, lawless and abusive – for which we pay through our council tax. They’re straight out of a film of police brutality and incompetence of the wild-west US in the past.

Two or three police cars were following me all over town again yesterday evening, slowing down when they passed me, backing up and returning when I took a left or right, etc.

It’s happened  too many times before.

And this kind of crap takes up most of their time. Hunting down citizens who dare report crimes and who dare stand up against the utterly lawless British police. They don’t seem to do anything else but this.

I have on occasion stood by on purpose myself to serve as possible witness in police brutality cases when I saw them hunt other people. But they are too clever to attack people in plain public view, I am sure.

We pay for this harassment through our council tax. We pay for it ourselves!

Portsmouth has the highest CCTV density of the UK, so yes, police can hunt anyone through the city, in retaliation or just for fun.

I also got a creep on a bicycle after me, along Albert Road, to tell me that women deserve to go hungry, should not be allowed to own any property of any kind, should not be allowed to work and should not be allowed to earn a living, or even be healthy and happy and that they should generally keep their mouths shut.

I told him it was the 21st century, that the middle ages were a long time ago and I crossed the road. The kid was not even half my age. He should apologize to all the women he owes his existence to, starting with his mother, but he won’t see it that way, clearly. In his eyes, women are lower than cattle. Usable and disposable. Not worth shit.

In case you wonder what the hell I am still doing in this shitty hell hole, well, I’ve tried to escape four times already. I also sometimes foolishly think that I can help make things better here, simply through my presence.

Also, I had formally raised the issue about the problems with local police again this week. Some retaliation was to be expected.

This photo below shows you what my door looks like when I am not in, these days. Three locks on the inside, warning note on the outside and a barricade in front of it, to stop, eh, anonymous elements, from shimmying the locks and carrying out crap in my flat – which has been going on since 2011, with the approval of Portsmouth Police.

Updated on 12 July 2019
At the moment, I am not using the vacuum cleaner to block my door, but the basket and two older printers. There was a time when I believed there was a local person with a brain-related impairment behind it, but it’s more complicated than that.

I watch this and realize that I don’t know a thing about autism…

The BBC sent FOI requests to all 24 universities in the Russell Group of highly selective, research-based universities, and 22 responded.

At these universities, the data showed average salaries of:

£52,000 for white academics
£38,000 for black academics
£37,000 for academics from an Arab background

From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46473269

I am in the middle of reading “The war on women” by Sue Lloyd-Roberts. The book was finalized without her input after she suddenly passed away in 2015. I wish that I could still contact her.

Because then I would talk with her about her own bias. She sounds convinced that there is a division between the “liberal West and the traditional East”, and it made her slightly blind to what went on in, say, her own country, assessed by the UN as perhaps the most openly misogynistic country in the world. That can probably be explained that she’d been living on the Spanish island of Mallorca since 2003.

I can’t allow myself to be blind to the fact that people in the West who condemn what goes on in other countries but are blind to what goes on in their own culture may be helping their causes less than they think.

Continue reading →

Last evening, I saw a video and photos that I found shocking. It concerns severe animal cruelty that occurs near Sulphur in Oklahoma. The farm is part of Mahard Egg Farms who appear to be headquartered in Texas. I searched LinkedIn and found nine accounts associated with the company, including that of its CFO, Kaitlin Mahard.

I believe that severe animal cruelty can be considered “violent crimes” which would mean that LinkedIn should remove the accounts associated with Mahard Egg Farms. The LinkedIn Professional Community Policies state that “those who engage in violent crimes are not welcome and not permitted on the Services”.

In 2011, Mahard Egg Farm, Inc., indeed a Texas corporation, was told to pay a $1.9 million penalty to settle claims that the company violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) at its egg production facilities in Texas and Oklahoma, according to the EPA:
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/mahard-egg-farm-inc-clean-water-act-settlement

The latter apparently resulted in this:
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2013-09/documents/mahardegg-cd.pdf

That document includes the following:

C. MORTALITY MANAGEMENT
18. Defendant shall comply with the Mortality Management Requirements in Appendix D at the Vernon-Chillicothe Facility, the Springhill Facility, the Prosper Facility, the Boogie Hill Facility, the Nebo Ranch, and the Ravia Facility, unless such facility is not growing poultry.

Appendix D stated:

APPENDIX D:
MORTALITY MANAGEMENT

I. Texas
65.
No later than the Effective Date of this Decree, Mahard shall cease any transfer of
carcasses between Facilities unless a composting plan is in place that is consistent with 30 T.A.C. 332, Subchapter B, and has been approved by EPA and TCEQ.

66.
Mahard shall ensure that all carcass disposal at the Vernon-Chillicothe, Prosper, and
Springhill Facilities is conducted in accordance with TCEQ Regulatory Guidance, RG-326, Handling and Disposal of Carcasses from Poultry Operations (August 2009) and in accordance with 30 T.A.C. § 335.25. Mahard shall collect all carcasses within 24 hours of death and properly disposed of them within three (3) Days of death. Animals must not be disposed of in any liquid manure or process wastewater system. Disposal of diseased animals shall be conducted in accordance with Tex. Agric. Code § 161.004.

II. Oklahoma
67.
Mahard shall comply with the terms and conditions in Mahard’s 4/29/09 Carcass Disposal Plan, as amended and supplemented by the letter from ODAFF, dated May 7, 2009, to Mahard (both attached here as the Appendix D Supplement).

The Kroger chain has meanwhile dropped Mahard’s eggs and I’ve reached out on LinkedIn to it spokeswoman Kristal Howard to thank Kroger and ask her to ensure that Kroger will never be associated with such severe animal cruelty again.

Kroger’s 2018 Sustainability Report includes an animal welfare policy, which states:

“Kroger has a long-standing commitment to responsible business practices, including the humane treatment of animals,” Kroger says in its policy. “We require our suppliers to adopt industry-accepted animal welfare standards that we endorse, and we monitor our suppliers for compliance with these standards. We align with the Food Marketing Institute’s industry-adopted and industry-aligned animal welfare standards for the following animal proteins: beef, pork, chicken, turkey and eggs. For nearly a decade, Kroger has convened our own independent panel of animal science experts to make recommendations on how we can work with the industry to improve animal welfare.”

I’ve also contacted the EPA.

That is one of the questions I’ve been wondering about, as you’ll know if you read my latest book.

I just watched Brené Brown’s TED Talk about vulnerability again. I first saw it a few years ago. It turns out that her research appears to indicate that yes, the unbridled creation of designer babies would destroy our capacity for connection.

Smell the flowers, feel the wind, go along on the ride. It is possible. And if it is possible, there are only lots of good reasons for all theme parks to put this into practice for attractions that are not accessible to people in wheelchairs.

(I owe Sven Slootweg for telling me about this.)

Because we have been taught that something – whatever it is – is bad. If you let go of the idea that something is good or bad, you may feel a weight lift from your shoulders.

If you simply allow and observe the thing that is supposed to be bad, you may find that it is interesting – hence also good, right or even fun – all by itself.

Feeling depressed is bad, for instance. It is even considered a mental health problem these days. An illness. Feeling cheerful is good. Acting cheerful when you’re feeling depressed is good. Is it?

It can be, but there are times, after the death of a loved one for example, when we really have to allow feelings that are supposedly bad.

(Is mourning someone’s death truly “a mental health issue”? Or could it be a natural part of life?)

It is our resistance to “bad” feelings that often becomes the greater problem. As soon as you allow certain feelings and stop considering them bad, they can lose their power over you quickly.

And heck, even moping can be a heck of a lot of fun too.

What always comes to my mind when I say something like that is an image from the original Swedish Pippi Longstocking TV series.

Pippi is in a foul mood and goes around angrily stamping her feet, probably in puddles of water, powerfully indulging in her foul mood, full of energy. Acceptance. A foul mood is just a foul mood, not the end of the world.

Puddles of water? So it must have rained. Rain! Rain is bad.

I too have my personal good/bad hangups. Ideas that make me feel vulnerable or guilty or inadequate or unhappy. What are yours?

Boiling water hurts them too.

This video will change everything. For anyone who thinks that crawfish and other sea life don’t suffer, watch this crawfish sever their own claw to escape a boiling pot. So powerful. Please RT. 💔 pic.twitter.com/tNEYlvlSv2

— John Oberg (@JohnOberg) June 8, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Elephanta Suite, by Paul Theroux. The clickable image on the right and the above link take you to the Kindle version and to used print versions as cheap as 0.01 on Amazon.

It includes, among other things, a tale of inequalities (and colonialism).

Hardback This link and the clickable image on the left take you to the hardcover version.